Twenty-two comments

Cordal Jig

Somewhere I have a DeDannan recording with this tune on it, but I can’t recall which album it’s on, and I’m not sure it’s even listed under the name "Cordal." Lotta help that is…..

So my playing of it (on fiddle) has morphed over the years, partly due to not playing it often enough to have any one setting stick. Henrik Norbeck has the abcs for it online, and my version’s fairly close to his, so I don’t think I’m leading anyone astray with this setting.

I like this tune not too fast, almost down to air speed, although most sessions do it more up tempo.

I play the A part pretty much as written here, usually adding a cut note on that B2 in measures 4 and 8: |B{d}B A Bcd| or sometimes just rolling the B: |~B3 Bcd|.

For the second half, you can play it as a straight single jig throughout:
|d2 e fed|c2 d ecA|d2 e fed|f2 e fga| etc.
or as a double jig:
|dcd fed|cBc ecA|dcd fed|~f3 fga|etc.
or some combination of the two.

At slow speed, the Cordal goes well into Tell Her I Am (in G maj)—almost sister tunes. If you prefer a more spirited tempo, try sliding into Scatter the Mud after the Cordal.

The phrasing doesn’t quite fit a 12/8 bar, but the long-short of it (d2 e) does have it coming off as a single jig, all in the family… I play it a little differently, but have had it mixed it in with slides in the past. 😏

"Tom Billy’s" / "Padraig O’Keeffe’s" / "Julia Clifford’s"

And all those names from down Sliabh Luachra way? It seems related to others, but I’m not sure. I wouldn’t call it a slide, and am not completely sure about it being swung enough to be a single, though I suspect one could? Here’s another take on it ~

The Cordal

As Slainte says, it’s an extremely close (though very likeable) relation of the A and B parts of the tune Morgan Rattler, which is on a barrel organ made in London in 1805, but there seem to be Welsh sources older than that.

Liam O’Flynn’s Version

Re: The Cordal

Apparently this was originally a two-part jig called Jackson’s Bouner Bougher, composed by Walker ‘Piper’ Jackson in the 18th century. Two further parts were added, possibly to fit a song, later in the same century.
There are a couple more alternative names here:https://tunearch.org/wiki/Jackson%27s_Bouner_Bougher